


Hobo and Karma

by Lochinvar



Series: Hobo and Karma [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: American History, Attempt at Humor, BAMF Sam Winchester, Brotherly Affection, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Caring Castiel, Caring Dean, Caring Sam Winchester, Castiel (Supernatural) Loves Cats, Castiel in the Bunker, Cat Guardians, Cats, Comfort/Angst, Dean and Cats, Demons, Domestic Fluff, Dream Demon, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamwalking, Fading Grace, Fixing the Canon, Fluff and Angst, Fun, Gen, Ghosts, Happy Ending, Headaches & Migraines, Hellhounds, Herding Cats, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt Dean Winchester, Kansas, Lebanon, Light Angst, Lucid Dreaming, Magic, Mark of Cain, Men of Letters, Men of Letters Bunker, Monsters, Mystical Creatures, Nerd Sam Winchester, No Sex, No Smut, Possession, Protection Magic, Protective Castiel, Protective Sam Winchester, Saber-tooth Tigers, Season/Series 10, Sick Dean Winchester, Sigils, Slice of Life, Spells & Enchantments, Spirits, Supernatural Cats, Supernatural Procedural, Talismen, Valkyries, Vessels, Wards, Warlocks, White Witches, Wild Hunt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-03-10 07:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13497836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lochinvar/pseuds/Lochinvar
Summary: The Mark of Cain is hurting Dean, Sam, and Castiel. Two special Guardians are delivered to the Bunker. They will do their jobs well, but they aren't what the brothers were expecting. Castiel enjoys watching the boys flounder, especially Dean.





	1. Damage Control

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Linden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linden/gifts), [InTheGreySpaces](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InTheGreySpaces/gifts).



> Occurs in the early part of Season 10, when no one knows what the Mark of Cain is. Castiel's Grace is fading; he is not reliably at full mojo charge. 
> 
> Talismen are civilians who support the Hunter community, sometimes silently and anonymously. Similar to the Underground during World War II and guerilla freedom fighters in other eras of organized conflict against evil. Some are part time Hunters, and many are knowledgeable regarding the Supernatural world: the independent scholars and Adepts who study the realms of Monsters, witchcraft, and other worlds. Their existence goes back thousands of years.
> 
> The reason they are never mentioned in the series canon is because of John Winchester's stubborn insistence, with which he infects his sons, that the Winchesters stay the Lone Eagle Hunters, relying on themselves mostly. He only partners on occasion with like-minded Hunters, who he reliably ticks off and drives away. 
> 
> Such a waste, in my opinion.

Lebanon, Kansas -  2014

\-----

Was it a Hell-spawned parasite, a curse, or a Fire Elemental?

Whatever its provenance, the Mark of Cain was destroying Dean Winchester.

The nightmares, panic attacks, and migraines had been escalating, as was Dean’s stress from trying to control the Mark’s influence on his thoughts and actions during waking hours.

The relentless battle to retain his humanity had been weakening the Hunter, leaving him susceptible to the most dangerous of emotions: despair.

He had tried to distract the Mark by throwing himself into cases, but it was decided that he was too dangerous on a hunt.

He buried himself in research, but every book and every contact in the Hunter, Adept, and Monster communities led to a dead end. Even Crowley claimed he knew nothing, but as events would prove, he knew something.

Dean’s adventures in channeling Martha Stewart and the Iron Chef contestants had peaked during the incident with Sam in the cooking store with the knives. (See [Collateral Damage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12766764/chapters/29127096)) Team Free Will could no longer ignore how the Mark was spreading its influence. Dean still cooked for his family, but the Mark was no longer distracted.

\-----

The Angel Castiel had made a phone call and was waiting for a response.

\-----

Meanwhile, brother Sam and best friend Cas were struggling to offer Dean comfort. They both were punch drunk from taking turns every night gently waking the inflicted Hunter out of suffocating dreams of destruction.

They would hand Dean juice and pain pills, wipe his face and hands with a wet washcloth scented with soothing herbs (lavender, linden, sweet woodruff, and chamomile), perch next to him on the memory foam, place an anchoring hand on his arm, reassure him, watch his face, and wait for him to slip back into a less troubled sleep.

Dean stopped pretending that he wasn’t grateful, but a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice in the middle of the night wasn’t enough.

\-----

The Men of Letters knew their stuff; there was no building in North America better warded than the Bunker. But they hadn’t had to contend with the power of the Mark of Cain. Eventually, something was going to get through the barriers.

Castiel could feel the pull of Dean’s infected soul as it signaled to supernatural predators. It reminded Cas of the fluttering of an injured fledgling fallen to earth, drawing the attention of the things with claws and fangs that stalk along hedges and among the tangled roots of great trees.

A flood of attackers, pundits predicted, would inflame the Mark beyond Dean’s ability to control it; the aftermath of a supernatural showdown would trigger Cain’s prophecies. Dean would become a killing machine and inherit the mantle from the Father of Murder. And he would kill the two people he loved the best.

All three heroes were skating on the razor’s edge.

\-----

The city of Lebanon, Kansas, the community that had been chosen decades before by the Men of Letters to be a buffer between the Bunker and an oblivious civilian world, was mostly made up of skilled Talismen and those most rare of birds: retired Hunters.

However, if you check an online Census Bureau report you would be puzzled. Officially, Lebanon is a tiny community with one church and a ubiquitous Heartland grain elevator next to rail tracks, and a few hundred people who lived in town and serviced the surrounding farms. To this day, if you drive by, you would see a gas station, the church, the worn-looking elevator, and a few streets lined with weathered clapboard houses, which looked liked they had not been painted in decades.  
  
Unless you needed to gas up, you would keep driving.

The town would appear shrouded in in genteel, rural poverty. Empty storefronts and too many for-sale signs outside of boarded up homes. Like a dying, Dust Bowl-era revenant.

If you are an out-of-state visitor passing by, it always will seem as if the streets into town never lead _into_ town. Sure, you can drive through the middle of the city. Maybe, even stop and stretch your legs. But, wherever you are, it will seem as if the real Lebanon is beyond the next block or over through the next stand of trees.

And, for a Kansas town in the heart of dry wheat and cattle country, there are a lot of trees. More like Wisconsin–embraced by the Great Lakes and drenched with rain and snow throughout the year. Kind of like an oasis. Or a mirage.

But if you are someone who _knows_ –a local or a member of a Hunter family–somehow the dead ends aren’t there anymore, and an invisible curtain parts and opens. You will figure, correctly, that several thousand people live here, in pretty houses with a thriving Main Street. And lots and lots of trees.

\-----

Scholars of Winchester Lore later will surmise that the influence of the Cain and Abel lineage parallels the relationship between the Archangels Lucifer and Michael. Made it inevitable that John and Mary would make their home in Lawrence, Kansas, where the brothers were born, not far from Lebanon.

Doctoral theses have been written about how Kansas was the Supernatural epicenter of the American Civil War, of divided families and brother against brother.

Maybe, in retrospect, it wasn’t such a good idea that Lebanon, which the Men of Letters chose in part because it is near the geographical center of the contiguous 48 American states, was where Dean settled in to fight the Mark. Too much potential multi-dimensional energy, like a tightly wound spring awaiting release.

Not a coincidence that the long-silent ghosts of Bleeding Kansas and Quantrill's Raiders, the perpetrators and victims of formal battles and midnight raids and massacres, were rising in the region as a result of the Mark’s powerful influence. They were fueling an American version of the Wild Hunt, seen and heard with increasing frequency in the region. Skeletons dressed in blue and gray rags, riding the ghosts of horses native to American soil–phantom Morgans and mustangs and Saddlebreds and Quarter Horses–surrounded by packs of red-eyed coonhounds, steeple-chasing across the backs of storm clouds rushing over prairies and farmland.

The havoc they wreaked when they touched the ground was blamed on squall lines and wind shears and, of course, tornadoes.

Except most meteorological events don’t speak in tongues.

Fortunately, you didn’t need to be a Hunter, a Man-, Woman-, or Entity-of-Letters, or a Talismen to know what to do to protect your loved ones, livestock, and property. The warnings have been handed down through the generations, regardless of where your people originally came from.

Consequently, during the period of the Mark’s rising power, farmers and ranchers were locking up their livestock in barns warded with hex signs painted on every wall and above every window and door. Told tourists it was part of the culture of the Heartland.

Before the end of each week, feed stores and gas stations would be running out of their inventories of 50-pound bags of rock salt. Gun stores were selling silver ammo under the counter.

As in the old days, iron horse shoes were being nailed over windows and doors throughout Kansas and Nebraska, up to and beyond the Platte River. Many people didn’t know why exactly it was necessary, but they didn’t need to be told it was the smart thing to do.

Finally, triggered by that phone call from Castiel, the local Talismen Elders– _Lebanon, Kansas Chapter_ –stepped in.

The Elders huddled at an impromptu meet-up at the Lebanon City Café and proposed the recruitment of special Guardians. Two of them. Bred and trained, they said, to protect humans like Dean, both from the worse effects of enchantments like the Mark, particularly the migraines and the nightmares, and from the increasing numbers of opportunistic unfriendlies in the vicinity of the Bunker. Could slow the drain of Castiel’s dissipating Grace. Reduce the residual impact on Sam.

And support Team Free Will's quest for information regarding Castiel’s failing Grace and the Mark. Easier to focus on productive research if you aren't in a constant state of exhaustion and terror.

Dean was too tired to argue. A call was made to an international number. Two weeks, the elders said, maybe three.


	2. Enter the Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam meets the Guardians.

The hunters were curious about which Dynamic Duo was going to be assigned as Guardians, considering that Dean Winchester, although emotionally and spiritually vulnerable, nonetheless was a legendary lethal weapon all by himself. Add an overly protective baby brother the size of a point guard in the NBA, with a history of demon-blood-fueled psychic powers and a knack for anything with a whetted edge, plus an angry angelic best friend still able, under duress, to implode tall buildings with the wave of a hand.

What could two unknown watch creatures add in terms of special skills?

Sam, ever the romantic, thought they might be warriors with a mythical backstory. Knights from King Arthur’s cohort, waiting in the eternal spring of the orchards of Avalon for a new call to duty. Dean, a different kind of romantic, fantasized hot, twin, female Israeli commandos.

Castiel knew who, or what, the Guardians were. When asked, he would smile enigmatically and make some annoying statement like, “Not my place to tell. You will find out soon enough.”

And walk away, chuckling. Dean secretly was worried. The taciturn Angel never chuckled.

Knowing that most of the residents of Lebanon and the surrounding Smith County already knew the location of the Bunker, Castiel and the Talismen leadership still preached caution. New World Paleolithic sacred objects, unearthed centuries ago near the Chalk Pyramids in western Kansas, were placed at crossroads in the region, creating a lacework of ley lines. These effectively shielded paranormal activity, including the Mark, from most supernatural observers.

And, as usual, the ranchette owned by Harry Corbin, Lebanon's treasured truck gardener and herbalist, used as a pick-up point to deliver packages and visitors and limit vehicle activity on the only real road between the Bunker and the rest of the world, was where the Guardians would be waiting.

The call came, and Sam rolled out.

\-----

Sam drove the flat bed truck, part of the Bunker’s impressive inventory of vehicles, to Harry’s, figuring that giant humans, ents, trolls, godlings, or mountain entities could fit in the back in relative comfort: winged or wingless, two-legged, four-footed, or more.

(A Pegasus? He would love a Pegasus!)

Harry was out front of his store with a rare grin on his face. As usual, he was sitting in his antique wheelchair. A thing of beauty, it was crafted of sacred oak, iron, and silver, ornate with forged and carved sigils. A steampunk wet dream.

He was perched alone on the sandstone patio under a sturdy, anchored canvas awning, salvaged (and carefully decommissioned) from an enchanted carnival. Sigils and a too-obvious demon trap were stenciled into the fabric with homemade milk paint, tinted red with ferrous oxide and, it was rumored, Harry’s own blood.

Harry displayed plants, the harvest from his enormous garden, and canned and packaged goods outside in better weather. Customers would linger, nibbling on honeyed nuts and artisan crackers and sipping cold herbal tea and mint-infused raspberry lemonade. They would lounge in comfy old rockers and incongruous fanned-back Adirondack chairs, which Harry had fallen in love with after seeing them in a L. L. Bean mail-order catalog decades before.

(Harry loved mail-order catalogs, to the point that a couple of fellow Talismen had seriously suggested a formal intervention. Dean? Not much better.)

Two plastic pet carriers, a couple of bulging, oversized shopping bags, and a flat of assorted seedlings sat on the patio, shaded from the midday sun by the awning.

Sam squeezed out of the cab of the truck and stared at Harry, then at the carriers. He could see dark shapes and the flash of a golden eye through the gridded windows.

“Here you go,” Harry said, and he leaned over and clicked open the carrier doors, one after another.

Out poured two domestic cats. Sam waited a beat for their forms to writhe and change into seven-foot Valkyries, centaurs, or even velociraptors. But there were no transformations. None needed, as Sam was to learn in the coming weeks.

First out was an enormous black-and-white tom. A classic Tuxedo cat, with tattered ears, bullish shoulders, and dark gold eyes–twenty pounds of solid muscle rippling under spotless fur. Several long scars, marked with white hairs, crisscrossed his head and face.

He wore a collar of soft, dark red leather, studded with silver, blind embossed in sigils and what looked like a single Enochian word, hung with a Smith county rabies tag and an ID made of electrum, engraved with Harry’s contact information.

Without hesitation the cat trotted forward, looked up at Sam’s 6’5” length, and “meeped”.

(Sam, when relating his first encounter with the Guardians, would pause in his story at this point and “meep”, demonstrating the sound and emotional intensity of the cat’s greeting. Yep, the listeners at the bar would nod in agreement, even the crotchety older hunters. That was definitely a “meep”.)

Sam the Softhearted crouched down, balancing on one knee, and offered his fingers for inspection. The big cat sniffed and rasped his tongue against the tips in greeting, then claimed the hunter by swiping his scarred head along the human’s hand. Sam was inordinately pleased, as if he had just been knighted. The cat stretched, showing off his length and build, and then sat. He began washing a paw that carried a set of formidable, hooked claws, ending in needle-sharp tips.

Sam assumed at first that the second furball  was a sweet girly-girl. She was a Halloween cat, black as a demon’s heart, smaller than the big tom. Her thick, long fur ruffled around her throat like a diva’s stole, and she sported a feathery, plumed tail. Her coat was glossy, shining as if each individual strand had been dipped in exotic oils.

Her eyes were translucent green, like sea glass glistening on a moonlit beach.

Her collar was leather, dyed the palest green and set with jade and green amber to match her eyes. Blind embossed like the other cat's with a different Enochian word. It also was hung with a Smith county rabies tag and an ID made of electrum, engraved with Harry’s contact information.

From Sam’s time with Amelia the veterinarian he knew a bit about cat breeds. The black female didn’t have the pug face of a Persian, which Sam had never found attractive. She was much more like the classic Angora, a graceful, intelligent breed, known–as nerd Sam remembered from his research–for its playfulness, protective behavior, and ilove of high places.

She tiptoed over to Sam as if dancing in ballet shoes and sniffed the air, pausing to touch noses with the bigger black-and-white bruiser. The two cats obviously knew each other. Sam still was down on one knee. The cat seemed to look the hunter over, still scenting, sat in front of him, and yawned, revealing an set of long, ivory fangs, slighted curved. They were the color of whipping cream, with dark streaks of brown, and looked ancient, like the tusks of those natural history museum mastodons. He noticed how they framed her lower jaw when she closed her mouth.

The hunter wondered how she used them in battle. At the least, an enemy might find them intimidating.

Sam leaned forward and expertly rubbed circles behind her ears with his oversized knuckles. He stroked her rich coat, silky under his fingertips. She rumbled in pleasure.

Harry watched Sam and the cats with uncommon good humor. He called the animals with a couple of clicks of his tongue, and they trotted back together, shoulder to furred shoulder. They squeezed into one carrier and curled up against each other. The girl cat placed a dominant paw on the boy cat’s neck and began to wash his head vigorously, scrubbing under one ear with a persistent tongue. The big cat closed his eyes.

Harry reached down and clicked the carrier door shut.

Sam did not know whether he was supposed to be amused or really ticked off. He still was waiting for the punch line, for Navy Seals or 16th century ninjas or Maasai warriors to pop up from behind the carriers or Harry’s wheelchair, holding balloons and yelling “Surprise!”

Harry pointed at the carrier stuffed with cats.

“The best in the business,” he said.

"They will protect your brother, your Angel, and you."

He then had Sam inventory the contents of the shopping bags by having him dump everything out on the patio’s sandstone and then repack the bags of kitty litter, kitty litter pans, kitty litter pan liners, cat dishes, extra cat collars, cat toys, cat beds, bags of dry cat food kibble, cans of wet cat food pate and stew, cat food supplements, cat pillows, and cat blankets.

The cat scratching post, six feet of tree trunk with the bark left intact, had been sitting off to the side. Sam was glad he brought the truck.

There were also books, pamphlets, and a thick sheaf of mimeographed instructions and supplementary biographical data.

_[Editor’s note: Mimeograph: Look it up.]_

Sam had no clue that within a few days, the Dynamic Duo would have appropriated everything in the bunker, including Dean’s favorite cobalt-colored Fiestaware dishes and piles of pillows, blankets, and fresh laundry. And the memory foam mattress. Anything soft, including Dean’s pudge, will have been designated as “cat beds”. Anything mobile, include gun-cleaning paraphernalia, computer cords, and sacred artifacts, will have been designated as “cat toys”.

Sam placed the carrier on the floor of the cab of the truck, snug on the passenger’s side, and stuck the bags and the empty carrier on the seat besides him. The tree trunk was secured with rope on the flatbed.

The flat of seedlings for Castiel was stashed behind the driver’s seat in the spacious cab. Harry and the angel had a special bond, built on a shared love of bees and growing things.

Harry, still smiling, waved good-bye. As Sam pulled away, he could swear he heard the normally somber Harry laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hobo and Karma were real cats and lived with our family for many years. Most of this work is based on their adventures. They kept our home free of bad Supernatural influences for a long time. Their vessels are buried in our backyard, and they still haunt my dreams. In the good way. Chuck bless them both.


	3. Meanwhile, Back at the Bunker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guardians arrive. Dean is not happy. And we begin to learn their stories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Canonical cat violence; descriptions of how member of the smaller feline tribes typically kills their prey.
> 
> [Edited for continuity and the spontaneous generation of typos. May 12, 2018]

With some reluctance, Dean was making dinner for their guests. A spicy casserole, replete with farmers' market tomatoes, green chilis, onions, sautéed elephant garlic, fresh herbs, and twists of fusilli pasta, filled his biggest Dutch oven and sat warming in the Bunker's industrial-sized oven, which Dean secretly appreciated more than the Men of Letters' library. Sam had insisted on a vegan menu in case their Guardians’ preferences tilted towards rabbit food, so in a large skillet Dean was browning homemade pork sausage _(Smith County Fair; Third Place; Meat, Other)_ stovetop as a carnivore option, using a spatula to turn the links every few minutes so as not to burst the skins.  
  
He also was overseeing a sauce pan brimming with made-from-scratch red sauce, ( _Smith County Fair; First Place; Sauces, Red)_  reducing it on low heat to a rich, ruby goodness, stirring it slowly with a cherished, long-handled beechwood spoon that an anonymous Men of Letters had left behind, decades before.

(The white prize ribbon for the sausage was pinned to a wall near the stove.  Dean kept the blue ribbon rosette from the sauce in his room, propped up next to a wicked-looking Turkish Ottoman blade. The Hunter had discovered that the ruthless competition of county fair cooking contests could sooth the bloodlust of the Mark. And years of improvising over illegal hot plates in run-down motels had sharpened his skills, so that a real kitchen with real tools and topnotch ingredients gave him a competitive edge.) (See [Collateral Damage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12766764/chapters/29127096).)

Castiel kept him company, silently speed-reading through a messy pile of magazines devoted to container gardening and hydroponics, which the angel had spread out on the ancient wooden kitchen table. Unofficially, when Team Free Will wasn't plotting strategy or checking weapons, that table was the Bunker's gathering place, signally a respite from the Never-ending War against Evil. And, it starred as the designated space for sampling Dean's latest culinary treats.

Dean and Castiel looked up in unison as they heard Sam make his way down the stairs of the Bunker and into the kitchen. Dean squinted, and Cas did the C-tilt.

“Your seedlings are in the garage, Cas,” said Sam.

The tall Hunter dropped the bulky shopping bags and empty carrier onto the floor from one hand and gently lowered the second carrier with the other. He flicked open the lock, and the two felines burst out of the screened hatch, once again side-by-side.

Dean responded to the cats as if Sam had emptied a bag of Madagascar hissing cockroaches ( _Gromphadorhina portentosa_ ). He began a verbal tirade aimed at his brother

“No cats in the bunker,” the older Hunter barked, waving his wooden spoon in a manner that was meant to be threatening, not just annoyingly messy, as he flung weaponized sauce on everything. But Dean could not abandon his meal preparation midstream, so he stuck by the stove and yelled.

Angel, younger brother, and cats ignored him.

Instead, the Guardians leaped effortlessly and in tandem onto the table, double-teaming Cas, who had beamed at first sight of the felids. The Tuxedo male dipped a shoulder and plopped down, rolling to reveal an endless expanse of snowy, soft belly fur. He squirmed upside down with obvious pleasure, giant paws kneading the air with claws extended. Within seconds, all of the magazines were scattered across the floor.

The black female walked determinedly into the angel’s personal space and, putting a paw on his arm, reached up and washed the tip of his nose with her sandpaper tongue.

Cas had not moved. He looked pleased, blue eyes big as saucers, rather like a giant Blue Mink Tonkinese. He broke out a rare Jimmy grin and tentatively stroked the head of the fluffy girl cat. Karma had scraped the dirt and a layer of skin off the tip of the Angel’s vessel’s nose, leaving Castiel/Jimmy looking like a Hollywood reindeer.

In the background, Dean was ranting about disease and ticks and fur and fleas and muddy paws and poop.

“So, where are those damned Guardians, and did you tell them they could bring their damned fur balls into our home?”

“Smilodon,” said Cas. “Dean, these are your Guardians, and you should be honored.”

Dean squeaked out the word “Guardians” as if describing a new horror from Hell. Upside down, the giant black and white cat pivoted his head and stared at the hunter.

Dean then "meeped", Sam would tell rapt audiences years later at a string of roadhouse bars, recalling the male cat’s earlier greeting.

"Yes, Dean meeped," his brother would tell them.

Dean looked at Cas and huffed at him to shut up. Just shut up. Cas smiled and continued to pet the black cat, entranced by the touch of her fur. He stared into the expanse of her eyes, his freshwater blue resonating with her saltwater green.

Sam, although entertained by Dean’s meltdown, realized that facts would help ground the situation. Sam motioned to Castiel to step in. Their angelic roommate seemed to know what was going on, as well as having more credibility than a mere big-brained brother who currently was probably one of the better informed Supernatural researchers in the world, as well as one of the remaining Men of Letters Legacies.

“Smilodon, Dean." said Castiel.

“Their human names are Hobo and Karma,” said the angel. “They have the ability to see, hear, and act across dimensions. For example, they can see my wings and true form.

“Cats are natural hunters, natural warriors, anchored in the real world,” Castiel continued. “Just like you Dean, and you Sam, and Jimmy Novak, these particular cats were born to be the vessels of supernatural beings of some power.”

“They come from a blood lineage that has made them ideal recipients of the spirits of Dean’s Guardians. Within them slumber the souls of dream warriors, in this case, the Smilodon.”

While Castiel talked, Sam pulled out the papers Harry had given him, sat down at the far end of the table, and began scanning for information. The old tom cat righted himself with a quick wriggle, walked over to Sam, and sat. He repeatedly rubbed his head gently against Sam’s arm, occasionally batting the documents with a soft paw (claws retracted) when Sam turned a page. Sam was worrying about the damage wicked cat claws could do to antique, hand-made paper, but would later learn that both Guardians treated the Bunker’s rare book and manuscript collection with what Castiel called “velvet paws”.

(During the Guardians’ tenure at the Bunker, Sam will have to forge a pile of identity documents for Castiel’s auto insurance application. The male cat’s apparent problem with government red tape, amplified by Dean egging him on, will mean that the pile of papers would be submitted punctuated with tooth and claw marks.

Luckily for Castiel, the bureaucrat will be a cat mom with a personal story of tax documents that her beloved Scotty Cat had tagged, rudely, before her own audit. The raggedy corners of the application will endear Sam to her, and she will barely glance at the paperwork before approving everything.)

"Maybe you know them as saber-tooth tigers,” said the Angel.

 

“Which went extinct maybe 12,000 years ago,” said Sam, reading out loud from one of the documents. “Depends on the species.”

Dean looked blank.

“Ancient megafauna,” said his show-off (in Dean’s opinion) younger brother, looking up from his pile of papers. “Like those giant bears and elephants in that natural history museum in Chicago.”

Meanwhile, as Sam spoke in his James Earl Jones Important Narrator Gravitas Voice, the Angel warrior was playing “Bop the Kitty’s Nose” with Karma, alternating with Karma’s take on “Bop the Angel Warrior’s Nose.

A teeny part of Dean’s brain did not think cat and Angel were adorable.

“They can capture a being in one plane of existence and manifest it in another plane,” said Sam, still reading out loud.

“Meaning they can see an entity that might be undetected by a human and pull it into our plane or dimension, where it will become corporeal…and can be killed,” continued Sam, reading from the caption under a gruesome illustration.

“Meaning, they can rip a ghost to shreds,” said Castiel.

“Meaning, they should be able to fend off and destroy, as required, the physical and dream versions of the beings that are trying to hurt Dean,” Sam broke in as Castiel and Karma continued their fascination with each other’s noses.

“When I was at Stanford, one night a bunch of friends were talking about pets and ghosts. Everyone, it seemed, had at least one story about their dog or cat seeing things that the humans could not see. Staring at a wall or a point in midair and being visibly upset.

“One of the women, Janet, had transferred from a small college in Vermont, known for its 18th century haunted buildings. Janet was a country girl with little imagination and much commonsense, majoring in business management.

One night, she was studying in a stone-walled garden house with “curious” stained glass windows. The images were inspired by a Tarot card deck. (No plaster walls for small rodents to hide in, which is the hyper-rational response skeptics tried to provide for the reason behind the so-called invisible being.)  
  
“Her cairn terrier was with her.”

(“Let me guess,” said Dean. “Name of Toto?”

“Of course,” said Sam. “Think it’s a Federal law.”)

"Toto, reportedly a feisty ratter willing to take on any beast, including the next door neighbor’s mastiff, was sleeping at Janet’s side. Suddenly, he woke up, and stared at a spot in mid-air in what Janet described as abject terror. The doglet began whimpering, piddled on himself, and began to back out of the room. Janet said she very slowly and very carefully picked up her books and papers, turned, and followed Toto’s lead. When Toto came to the open door, he took off, with Janet right behind him. Neither stopped until they reached her dorm, ½ mile down the road.”

“Janet swore there was Something there,” said Sam.

“Everyone had a similar story.”

He bounced the conversational ball back to Castiel. Dean had his back to them. He had the sausages on a warming burner and had gone back to stirring his extra pot of sauce. Being Dean, he stirred grumpily.

“Guardians carry with them formidable weapons, purported to have the same power as angel blades, or better, under some circumstances. Never heard of one being defeated. The death bite, to the neck or backbone of their prey, seems to be the operative kill strike in most cases. It occurs if and when their teeth fit the spacing of the target’s vertebrae,” said Castiel.

“If the prey has no skeletal system or the like, ripping out the sensory organs and the equivalent of the internal organs–a monster’s version of a belly–simultaneously by means of the cat's teeth, front claws, and back claws has proven an effective attack strategy,” Castiel added.

There was admiration in his voice, one warrior to another.

“These Guardians, unlike most members of the cat family (except for contemporary lions), will hunt in pairs or groups, as did their saber-toothed ancestors. It is hypothesized that they communicate via telepathy, but no one knows for sure,” said Sam, continuing to read out loud.

The cats were now attentive to the conversation. Once in a while they would find a place on their thick coats that needed attention, but otherwise they both were staring at Sam with interest, apparently listening to everything he had to say, then, as one, turning their heads to listen to Castiel responses.

 


	4. Karma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing the Guardian Karma, with her tactics for training Hunters and Talismen

Sam continued to read out loud from the papers Harry provided. They were well worn: dog-eared, and wrinkled. The earliest of the mimeograph sheets looked as if they had been run off in the 1950s, which caused Sam to wonder exactly how old these Guardian vessels were. Who wrote these notes, Sam wondered, as he skimmed the papers, reading the more pertinent and interesting passages out loud. How did they know what they knew? Did Hobo and Karma dictate them? Do they have Watchers, a la the Men of Letters?

Karma’s strange green eyes glowed from the reflected light in the bunker’s kitchen. At least, that's what Sam told himself.)

Dean now was grating an endless amount of habanero-flecked, white Jack cheese into a large mixing bowl. He would pause to drink from a giant can of Australian beer, which he had retrieved from the refrigerator without offering to fetch one for Castiel or Sam–a grave insult in the Wincester universe.

Sam refrained from comment. He did not know if Dean’s stubbornness was generated by the Mark, or his irritation with “cats on the table”, or his growing frustration with the implications that he was to be protected by small animals that otherwise should have been keeping some cat lady hoarder with a big hat company in her twilight years.

\----

Karma was born and raised in a Houston, Texas, Talismen family, whose members knew her lineage and were proud to have a part in her upbringing and training.

Even before she went through the transition to Guardian, her vessel was a Hunter of repute. The family would lend her out to clear the vermin, supernatural and secular, from civilian homes.

Surprised? The cat family had been hunting supernatural entities since before the first north African wild cats were domesticated by Egyptians to protect their granaries from rodents during times of famine.

Before a visit, her Talismen humans would instruct the civilians to open all of the cupboards in their kitchen and all of the closet doors in their bedrooms. They would put food, water, and a folded blanket on the floor in the kitchen. Karma would enter the home, do a quick room-to-room survey, and then curl up on the blanket, apparently ready for bed.

The civilians would wake up in the morning, having slept soundly, perhaps for the first time for months, and find rodent corpses lined up on the kitchen floor. Any spirits would have been banished. Karma soon gained a reputation in the local Adept community, which also used her to quickly hone in on hex bags and other cursed (and the more rarely blessed) artifacts.

After her transition into a Guardian vessel, Karma often would be assigned to live with a Hunter short term to assist in multi-dimensional cases. She would travel with them and, if necessary, sneak into motels with no-pet policies or cheerfully nap in their cars or trucks as required.

Her black fur was an advantage, making her all but invisible to outsiders, even in daylight. Once she was stalking a creature–large, evil, and arboreal–in an old-growth New York state forest with a pair of experienced Hunters. She flattened herself at the foot of an ancient maple with overgrown roots and disappeared in front of the humans, becoming a long shadow. They hid in a thicket of American beech a few feet away and watched.

Karma lay motionless for 30 minutes, while the curious monster crept closer and closer. It touched what appeared to be its nose to the edge of the Guardian in shadow form and “sniffed”. Karma held still for 30 beats while the creature edged even nearer. The cat materialized with what the Hunters heard as a small pop of displaced air, launching into battle. A couple of minutes later she was calmly licking green ichor from her claws while the Hunters dragged the creature's body to an open space away from the trees and bushes to salt and burn.

The various kinds of sticky crap that oozed from supernatural creatures, living and dead, did not seem to bother Guardians or their vessels. A Guardian also seemed to be immune from the effects of most poisons, curses, and spells.

Karma also would sweep Hunters’ living quarters for nasties and participate in training activities, sometimes combining the two.

The cat would wait until the Hunters were asleep. She would then disappear, stun and drag creatures from other dimensions (sometimes many times her size) into this one, and set the groggy entities loose in the bedrooms of the Hunters in the dead of night. The Hunters would leap out of bed from a sound sleep, weapons in hand, to her chirping wake up call, the same a mother cat uses to alert kittens that she has brought game home. The humans reportedly would hear the skittering of unholy feet on the walls and ceiling.

The hunters would vanquish the monsters with blades and guns and then return to bed, exhausted.

Karma would sit back and critique the Hunters’ methodology during these sessions. Once, not satisfied with a performance, she waited for a young hunter-in-training to dispose of the first creature she released and crawl back to his bed before she dragged in a second creature, and finally a third, all in one night. After the third encounter, she decided the human had passed some undefined test. Never imposed the midnight exams again, at least not with that Hunter.

Why was this news to Sam and Dean? Well, their father John was a paranoid solo player, and he had nothing to do with Talismen and their support of the Hunter community, at least not knowingly. But not all American Hunters have been oblivious to working with Talismen support, just selected Winchesters and Campbells and a few other lone eagles, so it appears.

\-----

Sam paused, reached over, and “fuzzed” the black cat's chin with the tip of one finger. Karma purred in approval.

“Wash your hands,” said his brother, reverting to Kindergarten Cop.

Sam grinned at Mr. Grumpy and returned to his narration. Castiel listened with head bowed and hands folded, as if in prayer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much everything in this chapter is true.


	5. Hobo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of the Guardian Hobo

Hobo, aka Jeremiah Hoboken Fellini the Third, had a different story from Karma, despite his impeccable Moggie pedigree.

Hobo’s civilian human in Denver lost interest in raising a cat, so she dumped him on the street to fend for himself just before she moved to a new city, telling the local Talismen elders that he had run away. For ten years the vessel lived off of his wits and the infrequent help of sympathetic, civilian cat lovers. Without that support, which mostly was comprised of cheap, farm store, generic kibble left in dirty bowls next to backyard porches, the vessel would have long been dead.

Hobo, like most street cats,  developed routines by which you could set an atomic clock, ranging across the alleys and streets of his urban territory. He had a dozen cubbyholes where he would sleep during the day: abandoned cars, the crumbling edges of broken chimneys and brickwork, and under thick, thorny bushes in the backyards of foreclosed homes. There were houses with sheltered decks and old lawn furniture that caught and held the sun’s warmth, even in winter, and deserted sheds with broken windows, well known to strays and wildlife.

During his evening rounds, he would weave his way through holes in wooden fences and wire gates, sniffing at the garbage cans for edible scraps. Even the nasty-tempered backyard dogs didn't deter him. He knew to the inch the length of each chain, which dogs would charge, and which would only stand and bark. And he could hold his own when necessary.

He fought, scrounged for food and shelter, and bred many generations of black-and-white kittens, which still, to this day, inhabit the inner city neighborhood he thought of as home.

A Talismen couple, husband and wife, finally rescued Hobo after a life-threatened injury became infected. He sought their aid one early spring night after an inflamed abscess as large as a plum bloomed and dripped blood and pus from an ear clawed into shreds of bloody skin.

The humans first had glimpsed him after hearing an epic battle with the neighborhood villain, a great grey and white tom they had christened Blitzkrieg.

The husband and wife left the old stray clean water and soft food outside a basement window every night for two weeks, not knowing his potential status as a Guardian at the time; they thought that he was yet another starving, sick street cat that needed help.

Hobo crawled into the open basement window, knowing only that the inhabitants were kind. He thought it was the end and wanted to die in peace. They found him huddled in a corner and coaxed him into a small storage room with a plate of oily tuna fish and locked him in.

What they saw when they turned on the lights and lifted him on to a work table? Fur filthy to the skin and claws worn to nubs from almost constant motion on hard city streets. Both, fyi, are telltale signs of a cat's longtime abandonment and life at the bare edge of survival.

He was little better than a skeleton, battered and resigned to death.

The couple brought him to a 24-hour emergency animal hospital, run by a witch with a veterinary degree from Colorado State University and a knack for alternative healing protocols. The three Talismen humans immediately realized his true nature as a potential vessel when he repeatedly metabolized large amounts of the injected anesthetic drug and woke up in the middle of surgery twice.

The vet later told the couple that she had pumped enough ketamine into the 20-pound animal to knock out a Rottweiler. But his heart was surprisingly sound, and the vet “knew” instinctively that the cat would be okay.

The Talismen couple took the old boy back to their home, which was run as a foster center for potential and realized feline vessels–up to seven at a time–and an important node in the networked Talismen community. They promptly fell in love with his grateful affection, intelligence, and boarding school manners. They had to heal him before he could be possessed by the smilodon's spirit.

(Remember Blitz, Hobo's nemesis? He was rescued off the street later that year, and he and Hobo became buddies. They would sit in the sun coming through the big bright living room windows and reminisce, side-by side, like two old Civil War generals who had been at the same battle but on opposite ends of the valley. Blitz, now a gentle giant, became the familiar of a mountain white witch, who still lives in a log cabin high in the Canadian Rockies.)

Hobo recuperated in the peace and luxury of the home of people who loved old strays. He slept almost non-stop for days, waking only to eat, drink, and appreciate an ending supply of clean litter. (Healthy cats are fastidious.)

He curled up in a nest of soft blankets during the day and pressed between the middle-aged couple at night, on a big bed littered with dreaming, softly snoring cats.

One warm summer morning, the husband asked Hobo if he would like to go out in the front yard and enjoy the sunshine. To this day, the man swears that Hobo looked up at the human and said distinctly, “I have been out,” before stalking away from the open door.

What cinched the recognition that he was a Guardian vessel was when Hobo’s innate self-healing powers kicked in, and he mended at record speed.

Also, there was something more than cat-like about his soul.

When it came time to pull the stitches out from under one of his eyes, repairing a painful ingrown eyelid, the humans had to strap him into the equivalent of a canvas animal straight jacket. Regardless, it required two hefty, capable vet technicians plus the very experienced veterinarian witch to hold him down.

What the vet found interesting is that despite the cat’s panic, he was trying very hard not to injure the humans, even as he squirmed with more than the strength of a muscular dog several times his size. 

They also noticed his behavior during Talismen gatherings at the house. During the meetings, held around an sacred English oak table, dark with age, Hobo, no matter what he was doing–including sleeping soundly in another room in the house–would appear and claim a chair. He would sit in the classic posture of the Egyptian cat goddess Bastet, a pose he would hold during the entire meeting no matter how long it ran. He reminded observers of that old Civil War general, sitting ramrod straight, never leaning against the back of the chair.

The old cat would stare in turn at each person as they spoke. They felt as if he was an active participant, weighing their words. At one meeting an engineer of some note turned to a newcomer, who commented in jest on the steadfast cat, and said, without a trace of a smile, “Hobo makes a real contribution to the meetings."

\------

“Smilodon Guardians are not angelic,” said Castiel. “They are not immortal. But after they inhabit their vessels, the partnership between the cat's soul and Smilodon's spirit creates a heightened ability to heal and recover from wounds. Which made Hobo, after he went through the change, armored against injury like a demigod.”

“Hobo’s strength is almost invincible, while Karma manifests healing powers almost as strong as mine were,” Cas said wistfully. “And they both are skilled warrior tacticians. Tell them what you want done, and why; they will figure out how. And it goes without saying they are fearless predators, designed to kill, just like their non-Supernatural felid cousins.

\-----

Dean’s response was to pointedly dump the sausage along with the spooned grease and scraped fond into the pot along with the pasta. To hell with a vegan entrée.

He shoveled the food into three curved pasta plates and held two of them out while glaring at his brother and best friend.

They took the hint, gently lifted the cats from the table, and placed them on the floor. Sam moved the Guardian papers aside, as his brother held the bowls as if they were weapons and the Hunter and Angel were possible threats to the Bunker. Dean slammed the dishes onto the table in front of Sam and Castiel. He also fetched the bowl of cheese, which was large enough to supply a day’s worth of deep-dish pizza production in Chicago’s near North Side neighborhoods. Then served himself.

“Wash your hands,” said Dean.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. Pretty much exactly as it happened.


	6. Settling In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hobo and Karma explore the Bunker and do some clean-up work, while Dean is being Dean, and Sam learns a secret.

[At this point, experienced humans already would have been catering to the needs of the Guardians. However, before you become upset with them, or  me, Informed Reader, remember that our humans are more than clueless regarding the care of pets, and these are not ordinary cats. Even the usually compassionate Sammy is distracted.]

First on the agenda was the issue of the immediate deployment of the Guardians, which the three heroes began to hash out between bites of Dean’s more than excellent cooking.

Sam counted out the reasons for action on his fingers: Dean’s bad dreams, migraines, and the accelerating impact of the Mark on all three of them, plus Supernatural bad guys showing up in the vicinity of the Bunker with increasing frequency.

Dean countered with:

Dean is allergic to cats.

Dean does not need Guardians.

Dean does not want cats in the Bunker.

Dean does not want cats in his room, in his bed, on his precious mattress, on his pillow, or on his blankets.

Dean does not want cats on chairs, tables, couches, or in the Bunker. Period.

Dean does not want cats touching him, and he does not care if they are megafauna, 100,000 year-old demons, or Elmo dolls.

Dean is allergic to cats.

The Angel watched and listened while enjoying the molecules that poked at Jimmy’s taste buds.

When Dean brought up his allergies a second time, Cas noted, in his infuriatingly calm voice, that Dean had yet to sneeze or cough.

Dean responded by trying to pretend to sneeze. That didn’t work, and Sam snickered around a mouthful of pasta, so Dean coughed, spraying his mouthful of red sauce over the table.

“Dude,” yelled Sam.

Castiel snapped his fingers and cleaned up the mess. He then stood up, with a look on his face as if he was going to smite the Righteous Man. Even the Mark was taken aback.

He walked around the table to Dean, who was looking more than mildly concerned. Actually flinched when Castiel, who appeared humanly exasperated, put his fingers on Dean’s forehead.

“Done,” said the Angel. “No more allergies. You’re welcome.”

And returned to his seat.

\----- 

While Dean continued to rage, Sam yelled back, and Castiel picked at his food and surreptitiously thumbed through his garden magazines, which he had retrieved from the floor, Hobo and Karma explored the Bunker.

They did not seem to mind that in the heat of the battle over their Guardian duties, they, the actual cats, temporarily were forgotten by Dean and Sam.

Castiel could sense their presence and “read” their auras as being serene and curious. Dean and Sam often forgot Castiel’s millennia as a soldier. The angel found the bloodthirsty vibrations coming off of the melding of the two distantly related feline species familiar and soothing. It reminded him of his time in the Garrison.

He hoped the Guardians could stay. Selfish of me, he thought. They would be a healing presence and might slow the decline of his Grace.

Hobo and Karma worked each room and corridor as a team, whiskers quivering in invisible breezes. They moved deeper into the interior of the Bunker, silently and efficiently, even into rooms that the human and the Angel avoided. In the course of an hour they tracked, ended, and ate a dozen small entities attracted by the Mark’s dark energy, sating the edge of their hunger and thirst with fresh game.

The little ugly beasties had been thriving, if that is the right word, in the corners of dimensional anomalies that had escaped the attention of the Men of Letters, or which they did not think were significant enough to repair. These vole-sized creatures sucked energy from living things at a low enough level to escape detection, but still were able to generate minor anxiety and fatigue for humans and Angels alike. The result of their collective demise was a definite change in the negative psychic load in the Bunker’s atmosphere.

Within a week, Hobo and Karma would have eliminated almost of the small monsters, far into the supernatural depths of the Bunker.

Very discretely, Hobo warded the physical corners he and Karma cleared with a couple of drops of pee, and both he and Karma would swipe doorways and furniture with the scent glands in their heads, bodies, and tails.

From other dimensions the message could be clearly read: _Mine. Leave. Go Away. Stay Away. Now. Forever._ And the marks and wards would be perceived as blinding light to anything from the darker corners of the psychic realms and as welcoming beacons to benevolent entities.

As far as the Talismen and Men of Letters scholars could tell, these marks were eternal and would withstand vigorous cleaning–even to the dismantling of the building. The signs would cling to the invisible paranormal scaffolding of the Bunker’s walls and doors long after the earth, in this plane, plunged into the sun.

Some have speculated that given whatever _Love_ means, these chemical signatures replaced the darker energies with something clean and bright, something that cherished unconditionally, something that the brothers and the wayward Angel needed in their lives, then, now, and forever.

Castiel was aware that the cats were busy, but volunteered nothing.

When Sam noticed they were gone and got up to look for them, Castiel reassured him they were fine–just exploring their new domicile–and no harm could come to them, given the powers contained within their vessels. When Dean began his litany of what terrible damage they could wreak on the Bunker and its collection of books and artifacts, Castiel reassured him that their vessels had spent years living with Hunter and Talismen families, where dangerous and priceless weapons, spell boxes, potions, charms, and enchantments lined walls, shelves, and drawers, and not a single person had ever reported a problem.

(The angel did not share some of the things he knew about Guardians, and specifically Smilodon, which were not in the literature. How salt-packed shotgun cartridges and ping pong balls were their very favorite toys, which they used to play a feline version of World Soccer Championships. Their territorial attitude towards human property: Everything here is mine. How this attitude extended to the humans as well, which they placed under their care. Their sense of humor, which extended to pranking their humans.

And how they felt about humans who wanted to sleep in on what the humans amusingly call _days off_ , if what might be deemed as catly duties had not been completed.

Castiel was a little surprised at the number of clueless human authors who called cats “low maintenance".)

Of course, after a few weeks, most humans, besotted by the Guardians’ adorableness, left a number of incidents out of the official reports. The collapse of a Bunker deep in the larch forests of eastern Siberia–no lives were lost–had been cause for speculation in the international Hunter and Talismen communities for many years. Russians are notorious for their love of their cats, so no one will know the full story of what happened. The delivery of a family of five six-month-old sibling Guardians the month before, without the presence of an older and wiser Guardian as a mentor and benign dictator, was the evidence Castiel needed to satisfy his curiosity as to the cause of the explosions that breeched the otherwise impeccable Men of Letters warding.)

\-----

The two felines finally returned to the kitchen and sat expectantly side-by-side, waiting for dinner. It was rare they would have to live solely off their kills anymore, and they still would hunt with full stomachs. In this case, there was not enough meat on the supernatural bones of their prey for more than a modest cat-sized appetizer.

Even while Dean and Sam fought, the cats’ presence triggered the brothers’ innate need to care for others. Without a missing a beat in their arguing, they unpacked the bags, and Sam reached for a can of cat food, while Dean, at the same time complaining about the cats, was making sure they had a bowl of clean water. They used the special cat dishes Harry had packed; the illusion of cat bowls devoted only to cats and their food and water lasted another week.

Sam read the label on the can of gourmet cat food and realized that cat nutrition might be more complicated than he thought and that the Guardians may end up eating better than the human inhabitants of the Bunker.

( _Label-reader_ was an attempted insult that his brother had hurled at him during a late-night argument over the biography of a minor player in the Marvel universe. Dean was furious when Sam’s response was “Thank you; will take that as a compliment, brother who thinks illiteracy is a good thing.”)

Dean stalked out of the kitchen, and Castiel cleared the table and began washing dishes, a task he enjoyed doing by hand. Castiel was upset with the arguing and was obviously tired as well.

Sam felt overwhelmed. Right now, the Guardians were just two pleasant old cats: well mannered, affectionate, and mildly amusing. He knew nothing of the cleansing that had already begun in the hidden interstices of the Bunker. Sam thought that the Guardian intervention might be a waste of time after all, but was not ready to admit this to his brother or Angel roommate. But he was prepared to see it through.

He also knew that a larger problem was Dean’s trust issues around the Talismen. A failure would reinforce his brother’s desire to distance himself from the Talismen community in Lebanon, which meant less help and support for Sam and Castiel. More was at stake than the short-term potential assistance of the Guardians.

Sam decided that an empty storage pantry off the main entrance of the Bunker would be a good place for the cat’s food and unmentionables. There were several simple plastic litter pans nested together in the piles of cat stuff Harry had provided. It was suggested in the how-to sheet entitled _How To Take Care of Your Small Furry Guardians_ –subtext: _Which Could Gut a Grizzly_ –that the pans could be positioned and filled throughout the indoor property, as a concession to aging feline kidneys.

After lining and filling a pan for the pantry, Sam took the basket of toys, the two squishable cat beds, and the cat blankets and pillows into the room where humans kicked backed together, which had been dubbed the “rec” room. It was the most home-like of the Bunker’s corners, where he and Dean, with some help from Castiel, Charlie and the rare visitor, had jumbled together a collection of comic books, popular paperbacks, favorite graphic novels, old style touch pad controllers, headsets, vinyls and cds, computer games, joysticks, interactive video software, virtual reality software, old videotapes and dvds, and even classic board games. (Castiel, Warrior Angel of the Lord, had an intuitive mastery of the military tactics inherent for _Risk,_ but no sense of the concept of marginal utility, extracted from economic theory, needed to win at  _Monopoly.)_

Consequently, the Bunker hosted the finest home entertainment system outside of a multiplex at a New Jersey suburban shopping mall, including a hi-def screen as big as, well, New Jersey. The first time Charlie saw it she sat down on the couch and sobbed for a half hour, a reaction Castiel reported that was common to people during their arrival in Heaven.)

Sam returned to the library to finish scanning the Guardian materials for pertinent clues.

He reached the last set of pages, which were personal notes written by the members of previous Talismen and Hunter families about Hobo and Karma. How they both loved brewer’s yeast and corn on the cob, and Karma’s favorite treat was melon. How Hobo preferred a jumble of blankets to nest in, and both cats thought hot air registers were personal gifts from Chuck. Karma’s bossiness with very small children and very large dogs. Hobo’s tolerance for the antics of kittens. How Karma would hunt, even after finishing a big job and a big meal, and both Guardians had a cartoon character's patience with mouse holes and could watch them, without moving, for hours.

Both cats could nap on a human’s desk inches away from a speaker blaring earsplitting rock music, but they both could hear the subtle click of a manual can opener from the other side of the Pentagon, where they spent several months cleansing offices after the terror of the attacks in 2001.

Both cats liked other cats and stepped in as peacemakers when political disagreements threatened to end in flying fur.

Their endless capacity for roast turkey and poached shrimp.

Their love of human holidays, when happy people sat for long periods of time on shared furniture, meaning making comfy laps available for hours, meaning humans combing through their fur with gentle fingers, and being finger fed treats.

And the Guardians expectations that they would receive presents wrapped with crinkly paper and enticing ribbons, just like human gifts. Both Guardians had their vessel’s fondness for catnip, but there was a warning that Hobo had once ripped apart a female Hunter’s tres expensive designer handbag looking for his gift mouse, which he scented from across the room.

Their love of watching computer screen activity, from hardcore Unix programming to documentaries to old TV shows to music videos.

And, then, on the last page, in the last three paragraphs, there was an... "Oh, and by the way...".

Sam read, paused, and puffed out a silent wow. He reread the paragraphs twice and smiled. If he knew his brother, Dean could not turn down a dare.  
  
Sam had his plan of attack.

 


	7. The Wager

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam figures out a way to con Dean into accepting the help of the Guardians.

The two Hunters and the Angel met in the library at the big map table an hour later. The Guardians had followed Sam into the rec room and seemed to be content with sleeping off their dinner of canned Supreme Kitty Cat Delight Awesome Organic Locally Sourced ALL-Chicken Dark Meat with Gravy and Natural Vitamin Supplements, after exhausting themselves washing every molecule from their whiskers. They curled up together in one of the spongy, fleece-lined cat beds, yin and yang, and were sound asleep in moments.

Back in the library, Castiel had finished with the dishes and joined the brothers. The argument around deploying the Guardians continued, with Dean and Sam dug into their respective positions. Sam and Castiel were patient and respectful; they knew that much of Dean’s angst was not his, but belonged to the Mark, which was protecting its territory.

“Are you up for a little wager?” asked Sam. It was a tightrope walk, balancing Dean’s natural competitiveness against his justifiably suspicious brotherly, Hunterly nature. And there was always the risk that he would puzzle it out and win.

Dean looked puzzled.

“You talk as if you already know the Guardians can’t help you, so you know this won’t work, so you won’t even try. Here’s the deal. You take Karma, the black fluffy one. She has a secret. You test her, exam her, any way you want–just don't hurt her. You figure out the secret, we send both cats back to Harry’s today. You fail, both Guardians stay and start migraine and nightmare duty tonight.”

“What’s the catch?” said Dean. Castiel was stone-faced, but when Dean wasn’t looking, the angel nodded at Sam.

“Only catch is that you won’t figure out the secret,” said Sam. “Can you do it in, say, two hours?”

“Give me 30 minutes,” said Dean.

“Deal,” said Sam.

Sam went into the rec room and retrieved the sleeping cat, cradling her in his large hands and arms. Hobo never looked up.

Sam put her down on the library table, where she looked around and sniffed, solemnly blinking like an animatronic owl.

Dean, meanwhile, retrieved their medical kit and opened it up. Along with the standard first aid supplies, including bandages, painkillers, and antibiotics, there was an intimidating array of surgical and examination tools. Unless it had a cutting edge or a place to hold thread or floss, the Hunter was clueless as to what anything was supposed to do.

He wiped his hands on his jeans.

“Okay, let’s see now.”

He picked the Guardian up gently and nestled her against his chest.

This was the first time he had been this close to the cat, let alone touched her or lifted her. The first thing he noticed was how lightweight she was, bird-boned and feathery, like a baby angel, if such entities existed. He wondered if her wings would be black, like Castiel’s.

Dean stroked her, feeling her long coat slide over and between his fingers. She was amazingly soft. But cats were soft, right? Like girly soft–no surprise here.

The moment he touched her, she began to vibrate. The purr went straight into his bones. It was soothing, like the little animal was glad to be in his arms, liked him. Loved him?

Dean suddenly noticed that the Mark was quiet.

He still could feel the slumbering power, its tendrils of psychic poison curling through his veins. The red heat of its rage.

But, the Mark itself was silent. No voices in his ear, muttering obscenities, no suggestions of pain and blood. Underlying it all, the call to murder those he loved was stilled for the first time in months.

Dean's pride was bruised. Did this mean having fur balls around was all it took to stand up to an ancient, immutable source of evil?

The purr reminded him of diesel engines, idling at a truck stop, or the motors of barges on the Ohio River. The sound was pulled deep into his heart, slowly obliterating the tacit ache of the Mark, which had become familiar and tolerable, something his soul was taking for granted. A dangerous development. An evil that was, God help him, giving his battered human soul new meaning and purpose.

It reminded Dean of the years he spent as a journeyman torturer, anchored in Hell, corrupted by what became just a job. The banality of evil.

Even if the purpose that evil gives you is fighting that evil, nonetheless you can become attached to the Dark Side. Which is why generations of theologians, storytellers, and psychologists, as well as what might be called supernatural creatures of the Light, warned against addictions to the Noble Battle, no matter the opponent or the justification.

That purr, that loving, elemental vibration, already was obliterating, molecule-by-molecule, the worst of the Mark’s hold on Dean. Even if was not a cure, it was respite.

He felt like crying with relief. Was this the Guardian’s secret? Now, he wanted to lose. Damn the Winchester pride.

Meanwhile, Karma was falling asleep in his embrace, trusting and happy.

He held her up to his ear and tried to listen to her heart.

He heard a reassuring thumping. He shook her slightly, like a toy clock, listening for odd noises, like a loose gear. She purred louder.

Dean laid Karma on the table on her side and pet her belly, squishing it slightly, with absolutely no idea what he might be feeling for. She grabbed his hand with her front paws and dug the barest fraction of an inch into the skin on the back of his hand and calloused palm. The Hunter was now anchored by multiple fishhooks, which, if he yanked back from, would shred his flesh to the bone.

Castiel looked concerned.

“Don’t move your hand, Dean. No matter what Karma does.”

Curious, Dean left it limp, resting against her rounded tummy. Suddenly, Karma changed from Soft Kitty to Killing Machine Panther. To Sam’s untrained eye, Karma was in full attack mode. Her tail slashed, her ears pinned back, and those strange green eyes widened and glowed, but this time Sam was sure the light came from within; he recognized the Supernatural pulse. She bunny-kicked Dean’s hand fiercely and ravaged it with fang and claw. But instead of whimpering in pain, Dean was grinning in appreciation.

The attack was finished quickly. Karma flipped over in that snaky move cats make to right themselves; same reason they can land on their feet in awkward circumstances. She stood up and rubbed her head against Dean’s fingers as if she hadn’t had an attack of the crazies seconds before. Dean showed the palm and back of his hand to Sam and Castiel. Not a mark on it, not a trace of the destruction implied in Karma’s savage behavior, except for the tiniest evidence of scraped skin.

“She slid those giant fangs down the side of my hand and grabbed me with her claws in, not out. I think she enjoyed pretending she was a fierce, Guardian kitty…didn’t you.”

Sam looked at the dopey expression on his brother’s face and shook his head in disbelief. The siren’s enthralling saliva had taken less time to turn Dean than the purr radiating from this adorable felid.

Nonetheless, a bet was a bet. Dean pawed through the medical kit, looking for something he could use to reveal her secret.

He lifted a set of surgical tools from an elastic holder and a cotton ball dropped in front of the black Guardian. She simultaneously reared up, grabbed it between her front paws, curled, and rolled on her side. Gave the errant, bad bad cotton ball a couple of disciplinary licks and let it go.

Sam’s mouth dropped open, and Dean shook his head in admiration. Did Castiel just smirk?

“Great reflexes,” said Dean. “Okay, could use her on a case, I guess. I would like to see her in her Wonder Woman costume first, you know, with those teeth, and…no offense, bigger,” he said, holding his hand a few feet above the ground.

“That can be arranged,” said Castiel.

“Give up?” said Sam. “Time’s up.”

“Okay,” said Dean. “What’s the secret?”

Sam’s eyes never left the purring cat.

“She’s blind,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the real Karma was blind, as described in the story. And she could jump on and off tables, find her way in and out of boxes, and played with her toys. Would take visitors a while to notice that there was something a little off.


	8. The Demon Headache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean learns more about Karma's secret, Hobo makes a kill, and Karma cures a headache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short description of a migraine episode, but with a happy ending.

Sam’s eyes never left the purring cat.

“She’s blind,” he said.

His brother looked confused.

“Blind to what?” Dean asked.

“Blind, like she can’t see any wavelength from any part of any spectrum, according to the veterinary ophthalmologists at the Colorado State University vet school,” said Sam.

“Come on,” snorted a skeptical Dean.

He removed one hand from the cat’s soft fur and slowly reached out to her, palm up. He watched her nose twitch, her whiskers quiver, and her ears move ever so slightly forward towards the tips of his fingers.

“Dean, the average mortal cat can detect odors 14 times better than a human and hear an octave higher than a dog. Feline whiskers are antennae, like a three-dimensional set of sense organs,” said Sam, remembering his readings while living with Amelia the veterinarian.

Dean realized how much Karma could have figured out from minute changes of air pressure and scent. He also remembered how Hobo stayed at her shoulder when they had jumped together on and off the table.

“How did it happen?” he asked, and then turned to Castiel, accusingly.

“Douche-Bag Angels?”

“No,” said Castiel. “Experimental radiation treatment for a cancer in her nasal passages before she was changed. Perhaps the result of a curse or a spell. The potential vessels of Guardians sometimes are targeted. Karma was going to die, and a focused radiation protocol was the last hope. It took weeks to complete the treatments. They worked, the cancer was destroyed, but even with the care the specialists took, the radiation burned out her eyes."

The Angel paused and waved his hand in her direction. Now that he knew what to look for, Dean saw the twitch of Karma’s whiskers as she felt the breeze from the Angel’s hand.

“But the cotton ball. She caught a _cotton ball,_ for chrissake, in midair. Don’t tell me that she could feel air molecules pushed around by a little piece of fluff?” said Dean.

“Are you sure Karma can see nothing at all?” he added.

Dean glared at the cat as he continued to pet her. Like she was holding out on him.

Karma was listening to the conversation, turning her head when she heard her name. Dean looked carefully at her eyes. He could see that the pupils were thin black slits that didn’t change in shape or size.

Sam smiled.

“The head of ophthalmology at the veterinary grad school that treated her cancer and subsequent blindness left a note in her file. It’s how I learned she was blind.

“He said that he had worked with blind cats for decades. Wrote how they kept a colony of blind cats for behavioral research at the school. (Benign stuff, not the kind of experimentation that makes the average human want to smite someone. The cats were totally spoiled.)

“They would hand one of the members of the feline tribe to a new grad student at the vet school and ask them to diagnose what was wrong with the cat. The students rarely figured it out, so Dean, you shouldn’t feel badly. And yes, the veterinarian also witnessed a blind cat catch a cotton ball in mid-air.

“The vet said that he suspected, after 30 years of working with cats, that they were psychic. Magical Adepts.

“And Dean, he was talking mortal cats. With her Guardian possession, who knows what kind of power Karma has.”

After hearing of the black Guardian’s ninja abilities despite her blindness, Dean was too distracted to be upset that he lost the bet. He felt protective towards her.

(Castiel was satisfied that the bonding between Karma and Dean was on schedule. Positive news to report back to the Talismen Elders in Lebanon.)

“And her eyes? This green color isn’t natural?”

“The retinas in both of her eyes are detached. At some point, the doctors would have removed the orbs if Karma had not been due for Guardian possession. In any event, she would not have missed them,” said Castiel.

“But the change that occurred when the Guardian entered her vessel stabilized her situation. Some medical conditions can be healed by a possession, but, in this case, there was nothing that could be done. Supernatural intervention is capricious, and there are rules. Some things I can’t do as an Angel, either. But her eyes won’t get worst, meaning become painful. And the cancer won’t come back."

Sam correctly suspected that the Angel already knew the details of both Guardians’ lives. In fact, Castiel had dropped hints that he had met Karma and Hobo before.

Dean looked like he was going to be sick.

“Orbs? As in remove her eyeballs?”

The Hunter had seem much worse during his sojourns in Hell and Purgatory, not to mentioned his battles on Earth, but the fact that Sam and Castiel were talking about Karma made it harder to bear. More personal.

Dean continued to pet her luscious fur, which seemed to have a calming effect on him. Karma’s purr was vibrating through the heavy table as if it were a sounding board, putting smiles on all of the faces of the members of the Team Free Will.

Which is when the Supernatural migraine struck, apparently to test the boundaries of the Guardian’s power.

[Warning: Discussion about migraines ahead, but there is a happy ending.]

\-----

A typical mortal migraine incident includes blinding pain, often radiating from a single point behind one eye, nausea (and literal projectile vomiting), diarrhea, dizziness, muscle weakness, sensitivity to light, and the kind of full-body aches and pains one associates with influenza or rare poisons. Sometimes the outset is heralded by the victim’s seeing auras of pulsing light.

The bad joke among the sufferers of mortal-grade migraine headaches is that the patients could make good money volunteering for undercover espionage missions. If captured by the enemy and tortured, the average migraine sufferer might say,

“Oh, yes, thank you! Pull off my fingernails! Set fire to my ears! Will help me keep my mind off my migraine!”

Although the victims of a mortal migraine (the lucky ones) can achieve some relief through controlling triggers like specific foods, caffeine, alcohol, lack of sleep, and emotional stress factors by being mindful of diet and behavior–therapy helps–many may require heavy-duty drugs and painkillers.

(Harry Corbin, the Lebanon herbalist, had a collection of awesome teas and tinctures that could ratchet down the pain to a dull ache for most people. There was a special shelf in the Bunker’s kitchen cupboards devoted to his potions, each clearly marked with the ailment and instructions for preparation and dosage. After a time, the brothers found they were relying less on over-the-counter painkillers and antibiotic ointments, since Harry’s concoctions seemed to work better with no bad side effects. Dean especially was fond of the anti-hangover cure.)

\-----

Supernatural migraine headaches, like other inventions of Hell, were based on existing human medical disorders. Demons aren’t very original.

Nonetheless, the Supernatural migraines, in comparison to the mortal variety, were a whole other level of devastating, beyond the reach of conventional and complementary therapies. More like a possession, insinuating itself into nerve endings like a parasitic weed. Like the Mark itself.

Even when Castiel had the mojo to knock Dean out during an attack, the pain would follow him into his dream state. So the decision was made to let Dean stay awake during an episode so as to stay connected to his brother and best friend Angel. Gave him a fleeting sense of control and some physical and emotional comfort.

Team Free Will also determined that what was causing the demonic migraines was separate from the Mark. But the two entities were linked. Sam speculated that the Mark’s powerful signal had attracted the migraine demon? elemental?, and the Mark welcomed it, perhaps nurtured it, because the overwhelming pain weakened Dean’ resolve. Every attack made Dean more likely to give in and lose himself to the Mark, banishing the migraine and its catalyst but surrendering Dean’s humanity to dark promises of the First Curse.

\-----

One moment, or so it seemed, Dean was petting Karma, and the next he was falling to the ground. Sam and Castiel moved in concert to grab him. Not the first time. Brother and friend fell to their knees, following Dean down, their linked arms cradling his body and protecting his head. With some effort, Cas marshaled his remaining Grace and rose to his feet, holding Dean bridal-style.

Dean convulsed, twisted his head, and vomited onto the floor. Tears streamed from his eyes. His face was pasty, and his hands were cold and damp.

Sam scrambled to his feet, grabbed a towel from a nearby counter, and was wiping his brother’s face, for comfort and to ground him.

“We’re here, De,” Sam whispered to him.

Castiel carried the Hunter to his room, his brother rushing ahead to prepare the bed. Sam turned down the lights and pulled back the blankets and top sheet. The Angel placed his best friend on top of his beloved memory foam mattress, and with Sam’s help quickly stripped him of his clothing, down to his boxer briefs. They tucked him in, and Sam wiped his face again. Castiel went back to the kitchen to make a fresh pot of Harry’s special tea to settle Dean’s stomach and take away some of the pain.

They worked as a team. Knew their roles. Not the first time.

Sam was holding his brother’s hand, staring into his white face, muttering soft words of comfort, willing him to feel better. Suddenly he felt the presence of the Guardians in the room.

Hobo jumped up on the foot of the bed and planted himself next to Dean’s knees, facing towards the door. He sat motionless, in classic Egyptian cat god position, his eyes scanning the wall of the room as if sweeping across a great vista from the edge of a high cliff. What he was looking for Sam could not imagine.

Karma had scrambled up onto the bed near the headboard. She pushed her way by Sam, who was sitting next to his semi-conscious brother, to where Dean’s head lay resting on a soft pillow made of the same material as the foam mattress. Before Sam could stop her she had stepped onto the pillow, wrapped herself around the suffering Hunter’s head like a furry boa, and began washing his forehead with her raspy tongue. When Dean feebly tried to move away, she extended a paw, claws withdrawn, and pushed him down, much like a momma cat capturing an errant kitten for a thorough bath.

When Sam tried to remove her with his free hand, he was held in place by what felt like an array of razor-sharp fishhooks.

The message was clear.

“Sorry,” he said. This was her assignment. Her job.

The cat released Sam’s hand. She returned her attention to that special spot above Dean’s right eyebrow from where the pain emanated, or so he had told Sam after past attacks.

Castiel entered the room with a large coffee cup steaming with the odor of fresh herbs. Sam let go of Dean’s hand and stood up.

Castiel moved next to Dean in Sam’s place.

“Karma, with your permission, I would like to see if I can get Dean to drink some of this brew.”

He used the same matter-of-fact tone he would have used with a human or Angel.  
  
The Guardian rolled away from Dean, allowing room for the Angel’s hand to cup the stricken Hunter’s head. He was semi-conscious, locked in a place filled with pain. Once Dean had described the migraines as like being trapped in the mythical Iron Maiden torture device. Castiel, Sam, and the Guardians currently seemed a long way off.

With Castiel’s gentle support, Dean managed to choke down some of the tea, a small sip at a time. It settled his stomach and managed to back off the pain a notch. The Angel laid his friend’s head back on the pillow. Immediately Karma was wrapped around him again, licking that spot above his eye where the pain writhed and burned.

Castiel stood up and swapped places with Sam, who once again sat down and took hold of his brother’s cold hand.

The room was quiet, except for the rasping sound of Karma’s tongue against Dean’s skin and the low rumble of her purr.

Castiel was walking towards the modest CD player in Dean’s bookcase to fire up his favorite playlist of “Songs to Beat Back the Devil With,” favorites from the Impala’s soundtrack.

Suddenly, Hobo hissed and began to growl. Definitely a different frequency than Karma’s healing purr. His timbre was higher, more urgent, and had that underlying threat of unleashing the banshee-like caterwaul: what mortal cats use to intimidate an enemy.

Sam scooted closer to Dean and gripped his hand tighter while Castiel stood next to the bed, sizing up the situation, trying to sense what had triggered the big Tuxedo cat. Karma was fluffing, even while she determinedly focused on Dean. Her tail doubled in size, lashing the air.

Underneath his thick coat, Hobo’s muscles quivered. He had dropped into a classic felid attack pose, familiar to thousands of years of human “support staff”. The controlled slink. Whiskers quivering. Except, the Guardian’s eyes were focused on a point in space about five feet above the bed and a foot off the end.

And he leapt. Claws extended. And reached out into thin air and dragged something with him onto the floor. It screamed as they hit the ground as one. Something large, and heavy, not quite visible. Not from this plane of existence. But still able to be killed, which Hobo did with a surgical bite to what served as the creature’s neck. And it vanished.

Castiel rushed forward to check on Hobo, who was vigorously removing blue ichor from a paw and then wetting it to wash his whiskers and chin. The cat seemed pleased to see the Angel and leaned in as Cas firmly stroked his head and back.

Castiel sat down on the end of the bed and patted a place for the cat, who leaped without effort next to Dean’s feet, and finished washing, while Castiel, the appreciative Warrior of God, told him over and over again what a fine fine killer he was.

Meanwhile, Sam, who had been distracted by Hobo’s inter-dimensional ambush, heard Dean call his name. He looked at his brother and cocked his head in a plausible imitation of their Angel bestie. Karma was still washing that spot on Dean’s forehead, still purring, still holding him down. But there was healthy color in his cheeks, his eyes were clear, and was there was a smile on his lips. He looked drowsy.

His hand in Sam’s hand was warm and dry. While Sam watched, his eyes closed, and his hand slipped away.

Karma and Hobo stood guard all night.

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decades of managing migraines taught me a thing or too. Karma would hone in on the very spot from which the migraines would emerge, wrap herself around my head, lick, and purr. I would wake up pretty much pain free.
> 
> Pretty accurate description of how Karma lost her eyesight. Her orbs were eventually removed. And yes, blind cats can catch cotton balls in flight.
> 
> I watched Karma jump up on our dining room table, climb through a maze of nested packing boxes, and end up in the top box. She would nap, and after waking up, reverse the process and end up back on the floor. Stone blind. I guess she had radar or telepathy, or something.


	9. Respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hobo and Karma are on the job, and Team Free Will is experiencing the first positive effects of having supernatural guardians in the Bunker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some explicit details on the stalking and killing of otherworld entities.

Dean woke up the next morning feeling disoriented. The intensity of the migraine attack had pinned him to his bed. In addition a 20-pound, bull-shouldered, tuxedo tomcat poised on his chest like a circus acrobat, with most of his weight on his front paws, balancing on the human’s sternum.

The semi-comatose Hunter reluctantly opened his eyes. Hobo peered down at the human, his whiskered face scrunched up in concern.

The furry Guardian “meeped”.

Before sleepy Dean could stop himself he scooped up the cat one-handed and flung him across the room via his inner _Texas High School Football Star._ (The Hunter cherished the sweet memory of two months in the Hill Country at a public high school that worshipped physical prowess. Had tempted the teenage Dean to renounce the Family Business so he could stay and become a local legend. The Texas barbecue was exceptionally delicious that year, as were the long-legged, blonde Texas cheerleaders, which the teenager’s hormone-addled brain likened to Valkyries.)

As Hobo sailed through the top of the curve, the still foggy human was seized with remorse, wondering what the hell he had done.

There was a thud.

Dean cursed, preparing himself to view the damage, up to and including the felid splattered against the wall with a broken neck.

Then came a sound of something hefty galloping across the floor. The cat levitated back onto the bed, as happy cats are wont to do, captured Dean beneath his rock solid fuzzy body, again, stuck his furry muzzle into the human’s face, again, and vigorously rasped the Hunter’s nose twice with his sandpaper tongue.

And “meeped” urgently, again.

(Sam really did enjoy “meeping” as he retold the story, episode by episode, to those friendly listeners in Hunter roadhouses across the Heartland. Never got old.)

Hobo’s pleased expression was clear:

_That was fun! Do it again?_

And damned if the big cat wasn’t purring, a deep rumble that was causing Dean’s chest to vibrate in sync.

Meanwhile, Karma remained draped on the pillow around the human’s head, where she had lain since the night before. She was waking up, and, after nuzzling Dean’s hair, began her own seismic purr.

Between the two cats, Dean was at the epicenter of stereo buzz saws. His headache and the generalized sick feeling from the migraine attack were gone. The besieged Hunter felt a tad sore, and the back of his head felt tender, but other than that, he was happy, hungry, and thirsty.

“Okay, kids, last one to breakfast is a puppy dog.”

Hobo used Dean’s chest as a launch pad and kicked off, hitting the floor hard, and galumphing out the bedroom door and down the hall. Karma scampered off the bed, skittering a tail’s length behind her fellow Guardian, following the clicks of his claws.

Even with their active hunting routines, both cats were in need of a quick nail clip. Sam had learned a few tricks from Amelia the vet; he figured that with Castiel’s assistance, it would be not much worse than taking down an angry werewolf. Or two. Actually, both Guardians turned out to be easy manicure customers. During their time protecting the Bunker both cats would hold still and thank the Hunters and the Angel with kitten licks to their fingers before scooting off.

Castiel was relieved; he wasn't certain that given his weakened state his remaining grace was capable of holding down the panicking vessel of a supernatural creature whose original form was the size of an African lion, but with seven inch fangs.

\-----

Dean moved cautiously off his bed, expecting retribution from the Mark for dodging the headache bullet. But the Curse was silent.

He grabbed his iconic bathrobe off its hook, shrugged it on, and stopped by the Bunker’s spacious bathroom. While washing his face he stared in the mirror, something he'd been trying to avoid in recent weeks. He noticed that, for a change, he didn’t look like Death served over easy, with a side of Misery. Still too thin, and the bags under his eyes weren’t gonna get photoshopped out after one night’s decent sleep. But he could pass for human. A pleasant change.

Sam and Castiel already were up and looking good, having been able to sleep through the whole night for the first time in months. The Guardians were lifting some of the burden of taking care of Dean off their shoulders, which meant the younger Hunter and the Angel could begin to take care of themselves.

Breakfast included celebration buttermilk pancakes with a half dozen toppings for the humans and Angel, while the Guardians dined on something from a can that smelled vaguely of chicken potpie. Dean also made a Dean buffet plate for each cat: a molded heap of soft scrambled eggs, some chopped bacon on the side, and, for Karma, her favorite treat of diced cantaloupe.

For dessert–Dean insisted)–each cat received a triangular slice of pancake, from which they mostly licked and chewed off the soaked-in butter. They batted the mouse-sized remains across the kitchen floor, leaving greasy streaks and violating Dean’s pristine domain. Sam accidentally squished a piece under a gigantor boot sole. While the brothers squawked at each other and Castiel good-humoredly played referee, the Guardians slipped out.

After they took care of cat business, Hobo and Karma retreated together to their new bed, meaning Dean’s memory foam, for their first morning snooze, serial napping being a prime skill set of all members of the feline tribe.

\-----

“Photos,” said Sam. Castiel had brought up the topic of the creature from the other dimension that Hobo had attacked and killed the night before.

(Sam didn't know about the successful forays the cats were executing in the Bunker’s lower levels. Castiel knew but kept the knowledge to himself. He did not think it was necessary to reveal the extent of the Bunker’s other-worldly infestations or of the Guardians’ powers. Yet.)

“We need photos of those creatures Hobo and Karma will be dragging in and killing, maybe videos off our cell phones,” said Sam.

“Maybe need to treat the lenses with holy fire; it worked to let us see the Hell Hounds during the Trials. Also, we need to identify what's been attacking us and share the information with the Hunter and Talismen networks. At least, describe the creatures, even if we don’t know what they are.

“Document them for future generations, just like Dad and the older Hunter community did. Part of our duties while the Guardians are here.”

Sam was geeking out something bad.

Dean watched in awe as his nerdy brother vibrated from the joy of having to learn more technology and catalog new species of dreadful, as if their lives weren’t stuffed with awful beasties. But the tall Hunter was beaming, which made Dean and Castiel smile as well.

One effect of having Guardians on board: more smiles.

\-----

The cats woke up together and scored a treat from the Bunker kitchen’s ample larder: some chopped up deli roast beef and turkey that Sam had bought for sandwiches, in case the anticipated Guardians were too busy for a sit-down lunch.

It was occurring to Dean that it might be fun to read up on feline nutrition and create some custom recipes.

Yeah, he was totally whipped.

Meanwhile, the cats returned to patrolling the depths of the Bunker, following the invisible trails of those creatures sliding through from other dimensions or clinging, undetected, to the underpinnings of studs and lathe. Over the time they would live with Team Free Will, every daily mission would take the cats deeper into unmapped territory as they killed small entities without mercy and drove the larger ones out of the Bunker’s space-time continuum forever.

“Mine,” growled Karma, establishing the Bunker as her territory, as she ripped one of the faces off of a thing that wept through ravaged flesh as it crawled through a rift back to its home dimension, leaving a black and tarry trail in its wake, which sizzled and vanished. She then stalked and killed its kin, one at a time.

“Mine,” huffed Hobo, establishing his stewardship over the humans and Angel, as he straddled the back of a being ten times his size. He broke the _sort-of-a-neck,_ his jaws notched into its _could-have-been-a-spine_ as if the old tom had been born to murder its kind.

The black-and-white cat chowed down on the soft parts from the creature’s middle and then dragged the remains into a forgotten room several levels below into the heart of the Bunker’s foundations. The walls were made of fitted boulder and stone, the open door was reinforced with iron rebar, and the floor was loosely packed earth. The Men of Letters that built the site planned for expansion, but many rooms still sat empty.

Hobo dug a shallow grave and covered the leftovers with powerful kicks of his hind legs, the same technique he used to throw dirt over excrement and his ancestors used to hide dead prey for a future meal. He and Karma would return to the room again and again, like Mafia hit men burying bodies in a New Jersey wetland near the Hudson River.

Decades later, the killing field would be discovered by another generation of Bunker inhabitants. The mummified leavings of the cats’ murderous campaign would be unearthed, providing for years of study. Scholars would surmise that the dead entities would have given off pheromones that warned away others for many years, serving as a cautionary beacon: Here Be Guardians.

With each death and banishment, wavelengths on the visible spectrum shifted in the Bunker, as if Chuck was ratcheting up the sun's reach underground. Shadows fled from the relentless hunters.  Figuratively and literally, the Guardians were opening windows to the cleansing light of day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The incident with Hobo being accidentally launched across the room as well as the healing impact of Karma on migraine attacks are both based on true events, including Hobo's happy demeanor and his request for a repeat. It never happened again, and on behalf of the resident former Texas High School Football Star we strongly warn readers: Do Not Try This At Home.
> 
> No Guardians were harmed in the making of this documentary.
> 
> Next up: How Sam and Castiel are experiencing positive side effects from the Guardians' work.


	10. Distraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is the focus of Hobo's healing abilities. He gets to play.

Cats are intensive hunters. They’ll wait by a promising crack in a garage wall or huddle next to a patch of reeds by a freshwater marsh, seeming to doze for hours. And then they’ll explode in their attack, overwhelming their prey with speed and ferocity, claw and fang. The perfect vessel for a Guardian.

Hobo and Karma knew that the real threats to the safety of their human and Angel charges had not yet arrived at the Bunker. They would be ready. Meanwhile, patience.

\-----

The whiskered hunters returned for lunch, tails held high in greeting. Castiel dished out another helping of canned cat food. For the extra vitamins, Sam insisted, even though he knew a supernaturally possessed vessel could survive without food or drink.

Dean supplemented their snack with a shared cereal bowl of freshly ground chuck, his favorite hamburger meat. He stirred the raw beef into a iron skillet over just enough heat to warm it through, cooking it bloody rare to bring out the flavor.

The cats approved. Forgetting their own lunches, the Hunters and Angel watched the adorable killing machines gobble down what was their third meal of the day, not counting the critters they had dispatched in the Bunker.

(One myth that still lingers is that cats need to be hungry to hunt. Wrong. Cats that love to hunt, and not all do, will be battle ready even after a seven-course Thanksgiving dinner.

And both Guardians enjoyed the turbo metabolism of their kind, which helped them digest and neutralize everything from the deadliest witch potions to the armored skin of the equivalent of an otherworld crocodile.)

A vigorous washing session came next, the two cats affectionately taking turns cleaning each other’s whiskers plus the hard-to-reach scruffs at the base of their skulls. Another power nap, and then it was time to help their human and Angel staffers with the afternoon’s research and housekeeping.

Their assigned duties of protection and healing were not limited to Dean.

\-----

What about Sam? Sam needed to be happy.

Hobo sat by his tall human’s shoulder at the map table and stared meaningfully at the computer screen as Sam continued to search for clues regarding the Mark of Cain.

The younger Hunter engaged in an emotional, one-sided dialog with the muscled moggie, discussing his research in detail, asking for input, and responding as if given meaningful answers.

“So, you think the Boolean operators I have added to the database search parameters have created too narrow a focus? You’re probably right; I get carried away sometimes. Let’s change this operator from an “and” variable to an “or” variable. Even if the search is too broad, I can scan for outputs to help define the next level of search. Good idea. Thanks, Hobo.”

Hobo tilted his head and listened with the same unblinking attention he would give a mouse hole.

After an hour of focusing on the changing patterns of images and text streams, the fierce predator decided it was time for a different kind of hunt. He flopped on his side and initiated a series of complex games with Sam’s pen, swatting it with careless ease out of the Hunter’s big hand and onto the floor.

Sam would scold the cat (with an affectionate smile, which sort of undercut the message of “Bad kitty cat, bad bad kitty cat”) and retrieve the pen, pretending to be annoyed. Sam gave up after the 11th time, when Hobo grabbed his hand and pretended to gnaw on his knuckles, pretty much ending the human’s work session.

Instead, the two souls played.

The younger human discovered that whatever game he initiated, with pencil, string, and crumpled paper, Hobo would win through a combination of speed, strength, and guile.

As the afternoon progressed, Guardian and Hunter took their playtime into the long first floor Bunker hallway. From the toy bag stored in the “cat room” Sam retrieved a collection of artifacts suitable for a well-stocked kindergarten.

They played _“Toss and Fetch The Intriguing Plastic Thingie”, “Ping Pong Ball Soccer”, “Run And Chase And Catch the Evil Yarn Monster”, and “Ole Blanket Stagecoach Attack”._

The big cat played like a kitten. He leapt in the air with ease; Sam learned Hobo could jump six feet vertically from a standing start without effort and could soar eight feet onto a high cupboard shelf with a little extra tail mojo for balance and propulsion. With a running start twelve feet up to the rafters over the map table, where he perched like a medieval gargoyle, eyes glowing as he allowed some of his Guardian’s power to leak through, then plummeting down and using his momentum to bounce off the table and run into the hallway, inviting Sam into an endless game of chase and tag under the heading of _“Catch the Bad Bad Guardian _”_._

Sam ran; Hobo ran faster. At one dead end Hobo sat, quivering. Sam leaned down and tapped his furry head with a long finger.

“You’re it,” he said, and took off, the cat on his heels. Hobo bounded in gazelle-like leaps behind Sam, a sign that he was playing with his prey and not taking the chase seriously. Sam’s human ego was slightly bruised when he realized that for all of his touted Sasquatch athleticism, the cat was toying with him. They raced up and down the hallway until Sam slowed up on purpose. Hobo popped the Hunter on the ankle with a velvet paw, claws withdraw, so as not to snag the fabric of his jeans.

Sam fell down on purpose. Game over. The Hunter lay on his back with a grin on his face as the cat walked up the length of his human’s muscled body, avoiding sensitive areas, and finally stood just above Sam’s sternum. Rasped the Hunter’s scruffy chin and cheeks with his equally rough tongue, cleaning up the salty sweat and communicating clearly that his job was to take care of the human and that he had done his job well.

Sam, meanwhile, was as relaxed as he had been for months, going back before he had to worry about his brother and the Curse of the First Murderer. The big cat was a healthy distraction.

Sam had focused on those big white paws yanking the pen from his fingers and maneuvering the ping pong ball down the hallway with the aplomb of a British soccer star. Not think about Death and Murder and End Days. And mistakes made.

Sam laughed. Lots. Forgot for three hours (three hours???) about Heaven and Hell. He reverted to that boy who needed a dog and unconditional, uncomplicated love. And simple joy. As long as the Guardians lived at the Bunker, that’s what Hobo and Karma gave him, patching a hole in his heart that even Dean could not fill.

Hobo settled in on Sam’s chest, paws tucked under in what Dean called "roast chicken position" and began to buzz. Even on the hard oak wood floors of the Bunker, Sam found himself dozing, melting under the loving weight of the felid. A few minutes later Dean tiptoed in with a pillow and summer-weight blanket. Tucked the pillow under his brother’s head without waking him and floated the thin blanket over Guardian and Hunter, where the two friends napped until the call for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real Hobo loved games and, like his semi-fictional counterpart, always won. He played Ping Pong Ball Soccer in our office hallway when he came to work with us, pretty much at the level of a Brazilian World Cup superstar. Seriously. 
> 
> If cats are properly socialized as kittens and treated well as adults, most of them love to play in ways that uniformed observers will call "dog-like". Nope, predator-like. With joy.
> 
> Next chapter: And what about Castiel?

**Author's Note:**

> Own nothing; rely on the kindness of strangers.
> 
> Kudos and comments appreciated - thank you.


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